Tracy Randall-Loose summed it up best when she said, "Anticipation is horrible."

Senator Brubaker’s

contribution

Throughout the crisis, Sen. Mike Brubaker (R-PA) kept up a steady Facebook presence, alerting friended constituents of the latest developments as he kept up a steady phone dialogue with local officials.

"Facebook and other social media tools do provide an efficient way to get information out," Brubaker commented on one of his posts.

"The storm is not a political issue. It is a human issue," Brubaker continued. "Too bad some of our friends think politics as soon as questions are asked. I just want to get the right resources to the right places to help people in need. It is as simple as that."

Were we over-cautioned?

The Record Express polled Facebook users on Tuesday morning with the following question: Any reactions to last night’s storm and the state’s preparedness for it? Was "Frankenstorm" overhyped? What are your thoughts?

Here are some of the responses.

"While being prepared and alerting everyone in advance of the storm was great I think it got hyped beyond concern, and actually overplayed for our area," said Tom Benjamin, a Lititz resident. "Once the storm began to show it’s obvious track, I think the media should have responded in kind instead of continuing the hype and dire predictions. Some people I’m sure did not cope well with the doom and gloom of the predictions and may have caused undo stress on the people in certain situations. Over-hyping this to the seemingly extreme level that it was played at, will cause future storms to be taken less than seriously."

"I think we had the luxury of being better prepared for this storm. I don’t think it was over hyped," said Irene Hershey of Lititz. "Better to be over prepared than not. I believe our saving grace was the fact that the storm moved faster once it made the turn. No one could accurately predict that. I’m thankful that we didn’t get more than we got.

"Perhaps weather people got a bit too excited, but it was a very bad storm system," said Paul Stober of Ephrata, who was unable to live in his flooded home for five months after the devastation following Irene and Lee last fall. "I’m concerned that those who made it through Sandy unscathed may not heed similar warnings in the future."

"It was a bit frightening," said Jessica Kistler, activities director at United Zion Retirement Community, "but I would have rather been prepared for the worst than unprepared and been in a bad situation."

"I do not think it was over hyped, especially for those it impacted," said Kelly Shenk, office manager at Manheim Central High School. "We were just lucky — could have been much worse than it was. It never hurts to be prepared. Better to be ready and not need to be, than to not be ready and regret it."

"Preparedness was right on," said Brickerville resident Deb Shank. "Never take nature for granted. As always, some escaped the full fury of the storm. It will still be a storm to remember." More HYPE?, page A4